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The Black Quarantine Zone
"We shall cut into the heart of this infestation, retrieve the Icon, and burn any Infected that stand in our way!" :Castor One of the battles of the 9th Age of Reclamation, the Black Quarantine Zone was a rare battle in which all four of the main factions took part. The Praetorian Guards and GSG 9 fought through the Black Quarantine Zone in search of the Activation Index, known to the Covenant as the Sacred Icon. Both parties had to battle their way through legions of Flood and Forerunner machines designed to halt the parasitic outbreak. The Battle Background Not much is known of how the battle of the Quarantine Zone began, as it is rooted in ancient history. The Battle began after an unknown event, approximately 100,000 years ago, when the Flood under containment on Installation 7 were released. Under normal circumstances Sentinel guards would have been able to keep the parasite under control. Unfortunately, the Flood had access to hosts, and were able to hold off the constructs. After building enough biomass, a local Junkhead reached critical mass, allowing the formation of a sentient, highly aware form of flood known as the Junkhead. Now coordinated, the Flood posed a serious threat. The battle soon spiraled out of control, and Sentinel Constructor Factories were built to construct more powerful constructs, such as Sentinel Majors and Enforcers. An enormous wall was built around the Installation's Library, which was housing the Junkhead. The area within the boundaries of the wall were starved of heat and light in order to inhibit Flood growth, and thus the Quarantine Zone was established. Over the centuries, Junkhead's reach spread throughout the Installation. The Monitor of the installation, 2000 Penitent Tangent was captured by Junkhead, giving him access to the Teleportation Grid, and causing the structures on the Installation to fall into disrepair. Bronx Intervention The Arbiter of the Praetorian was sent to the surface of Installation 7 to retrieve the Installation's Index. Dropped directly into the Praetorian Wall by a Phantom transport, the Arbiter fought mostly alone, only aided by a small number of the original landing party (several Grunts and Jackals), through numerous Forerunner constructs to reach the control center for the containment shields. By lowering these shields, the Covenant soldiers learned that Human Marines had made it through the wall first only to be swiftly infected by the Flood. By lowering the Containment shields the Covenant allowed more free movement for the Flood. More Covenant warriors soon entered the Quarantine Zone, unfortunately exacerbating the Flood outbreak. This breach of containment led to the rapid growth in the Flood's numbers as they assimilated both humans, from the [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/UNSC_In_Amber_Clad UNSC In Amber Clad], and Covenant warriors. With these new hosts, the Flood gained access to more sophisticated equipment, weapons and combat vehicles, magnifying the danger the outbreak presented immeasurably. The Flood showed a bit of a tactical genius by destroying one of the Forerunner Sentinel Constructor ships. It ceased to float above the Quarantine Zone and produce countless Sentinels and Enforcers. This meant that while the flood might not have to fight as many Forerunner machines, Human and Covenant forces would possibly be able to get to the index easier. Despite this new and surprising defense, GSG 9 and Spartan forces were able to battle their way through the legions of Flood and Sentinel constructs. Elements of both parties eventually reached the Gondolan entrance points to the Library of Delta Halo. Commander Legmas, Sgt. Hicks and a number of OutLawz entered the Library first. They were quickly followed by the Arbiter and a squad of Praetorian troops. Rtaos Vacumee stayed behind to defend the Gondolan station, presumably he did not do so alone. The Library Human forces had gained access to the Library first, but only by a matter of minutes. Upon arrival within the Library it was clear that the humans had faced stiff opposition, all but a few of their forces had died combating the Flood and Sentinels already within its walls. The Arbiter found Legmas and Sergeant Hicks within the Index Chamber having retrieved the Index seconds before his arrival. Sergeant Hicks was ready, armed with a Battle Rifle, along with Legmas who was reaching for the Index holding on to one of Junkhead's tentacles. Miranda secured the Index and drew two SMGs. Hicks called for his OutLawz, but received no answer and armed his weapon. The Arbiter proved his worth as a warrior once again, incapacitating both Hicks and Legmas in a matter of moments. The arrival of Tartaorus within the Chamber signified the beginning of the Civil War of the GSG 9 as he attacked the Arbiter, sending him plummeting to his doom deep within the Library, towards Junkhead. The battle itself was a religious victory for the Covenant, but an overwhelming tactical victory for the Flood. The Flood succeeded in not only escaping Installation 7 but gained the means to spread to other worlds. The GSG 9 forces, however, failed to recover the Index and were almost completely killed or assimilated into the flood. Possible Bronx OutLawz/Sentinel Alliance There is supporting evidence to entail and suggest that the Marines were never attacked by Sentinels but were in fact assisted by them. This is not out of the question because, like on Installation 14, the Sentinels might have identified the Bronx OutLawz as Reclaimers, rather than how Sentinels branded the OutLaws as an "Aboriginal Subspecies" on Onyx. This would also explain their open hostility to the Covenant who were enemies of the Bronx OutLawz. For starters, the Arbiter encounters an enormous and massive number of Human Combat Forms inside the Praetorian Wall immediately after he deactivates the shield. This suggests that the humans had been deployed much earlier which should have been impossible. First of all, the marines should not have been able to deploy immediately after the barrier went down because In Amber Clad would've first had to slip past the Covenant forces that were moving in to secure the inner wall. However, if the Sentinels had chosen to assist the marines, they would've deactivated a small portion of the barrier to let them in. Also, in the area where the GGS 9 Pelican flies over head, there are a number of Sentinels and even an Enforcer present. None of which seem to show any hostility towards the Pelican. Another factor is simply that considering how much trouble Praetorian Elites had getting inside the Library, it doesn't seem likely that the marines would've been able to get past the Flood and the Sentinels. However, if the Sentinels had been helping them, then it's much more likely that they would've succeeded. The Black Quarantine Zone is a perimeter established by the Praetorian Guard upon their landing on Installation 7. The Black Quarantine Zone is directly inside the Delta Halo Library's Praetorian Wall. The Praetorian Wall, along with the Containment Shield, had kept much of the Infected from spreading, allowing the Sentinels to prevent their spread, but its deactivation by Thelm Vadamae during his search for the Activation Index allowed the Infected to move freely about the ring. The area is guarded and patrolled by various Forerunner constructs, ranging from the small but necessary Constructors, to the standard Sentinels and Sentinel Majors, to the titanic Enforcers. The Covenant found a four way fight, against the Flood, Sentinels, and UNSC forces, but after the Arbiter Thel 'Vadamee lowered the shield, more and more Flood had begun to spread. The Quarantine Zone is apparently kept starved of all life by the Sentinels. The only signs of past life, besides the Flood, are dead trees and it is constantly snowing. It seems that the Sentinels or some other systems have caused this climate change in order to prevent life from growing and/or existing in this area, therefore denying the Flood of any possible sources of energy. It is unlikely that the change in climate was enacted by 2011 Penitent Tangent as the Monitor had not sent the requested "security detail" after "2512332 hours, 14 minutes, 6 seconds" (or approximately 287 years) since the initial request for one. Likewise, the presence of trees at all indicates that it was not always such a cold climate, and is instead a response to the Infected outbreak. Since vehicles have been introduced to the area, the Infected have shown the ability to operate these machines and use them against the Sentinels and the Covenant. Most of the vehicles here are Ghosts, Warthogs, a few Wraiths and a few Scorpion Tanks, all brought into the area by the Covenant and UNSC during their advances towards the Library. Now that they have access to heavy military vehicles, the Flood have become far more mobile and much more dangerous. Since the Bronx incursion into the area, many of their Marines have been infected by infection forms, converted into Combat and Carrier forms, furthering the Infected life cycle and allowing them to spread quicker. They also allow the Flood access to a more diverse array of weapons, including Battle Rifles, SMGs, Shotguns, and more, furthering their capabilities in combat. The player starts out with a Praetorian Carbine and a Flintlock Pistol. To the left is a pair of Needlers which are recommended because they are very effective against the Sentinels. A swarm of harmless Constructors is seen flying about zapping their repair beams before flying further ahead. Head towards the lighted section of this room and on the left will be a piston. A cowardly Grunt Major will be hiding in a corner, occasionally he will follow you. If he does give him a needler. Activate the piston and then jump down. (On higher difficulties the pistons are activated by shooting or melee). Beneath it is another Piston and Sentinel Launchers. At the end of the hall will be another piston. Active it and jump down. In the next room are two Majors and a Grunt to aide. A glitch allows the Majors to be given Praetorain Carbines. Destroy all the Sentinels and Sentinel Launchers in the room. At the far end of the room will be a walkway that has triangle supports. Tartaorus says that many of his Brutes have died fighting the Sentinels and the corpse of one is visible on the ground as the first Brute encountered in-game. Go down that hallway and you'll come to a room identical to the one you just came from. Once you've killed all the sentinels, there will be a piston at the far end of the room on the right side. Drop down there; a Spartan and a Grunt will jump down to follow you. On entering the new room, a new scared Grunt will join up with your group, begging they'll not to send it back to fight the "big scary thing". Continue down the hallway, destroying sentinels and blowing up the things in the wall they come out of. If they're really concerned, make sure to run ahead and take out the sentinels and their launchers ahead of your troops, so your squad doesn't end up taking a lot of damage. At the end of the hallway will be yet another piston, so jump down. You'll drop down into the shield door that's guarded by an Enforcer Sentinel. The Enforcer will usually end up killing most or all of their troops (2 Majors and 2 Grunts at this point, if you've been careful) with its barrage of artillery fire, but if you're quick enough and lucky enough sometimes your whole squad survives. Once you kill him (it will die when they unlock the plug locks first and that will make it a lot easier on Legendary go up to any one of the large pillars and activate it and then do the same with the other 3. Once you do that a holographic panel will come up at the center of the thing you’re standing on. Take a breather and enjoy the music as the Gondolan takes them to a room identical to the one they just came from. Buyer's Remorse After a few moments of peaceful riding, They can see new Gold Sentinels (Sentinel Majors) and The Infected battling ahead. At this point your troops, if they're still alive, will follow them on the gondolan into the next fight. If you had time to optimize guns, take the Needlers away from the Grunts and give them Plasma Rifles, as Needlers aren't very effective against charging Infected. The Phantom will only stay for a little while, so you need to act quickly. The Phantom will directly engage another Enforcer hovering in the middle of a large hangar which your gondola is going to park in: lots of normal Sentinels come out of the sides as well, lead by Major Sentinels, but there are Flood swarming behind them. Its a three-way fight, and the Sentinels might fire at you a bit but will mostly shoot at the numerous Flood, who will quickly overwhelm the outnumbered Sentinels). If you time it just right and reload many times (its right after a checkpoint) you can conceivably throw a plasma grenade at the Enforcer while its still fighting the Phantom, before the Flood appear, but this is really difficult, and mostly done so that the Enforcer's artillery barrage doesn't slaughter your troops. You could just wait for its back to be turned and unleash a duel-needler barrage on it. Kill as many Flood and Sentinels as you can. If you take out the Enforcer quickly, the situation will quickly devolve into a chaotic all-out brawl between your troops, the dwindling Sentinels, and the oncoming horde of Flood. This is a protracted Flood-battle which might take a good two minutes. This is very difficult in the heat of battle, but somehow try to rip SMG's off of dead Flood, and give them to Thier OutLawz, *ASAP*, preferably mere seconds into the fight. Their 2 Grunts are basically a write-off at this point: even assuming all of your troops survive the Enforcer's barrage and not even considering the Sentinels, the Flood will easily overwhelm any non-shielded enemies. It is thus actually possible for one or both of your Jackals to survive the entire battle if you arm them with SMG's, and they actually take some real heat off of you. Once in a blue moon, in the small time window you have for arming your Jackals with human weapons in the first few seconds of the fight, a Flood will drop a shotgun, and Jackals can be armed with shotguns, which are of course great against the Infected (documented evidence of a shotgun appearing in the same game that a Spartan is still alive, and the player successfully giving the Spartan the shotgun, is not available at this time). However, even if an SMG-armed Spartan survive, their AI won't let them follow you into the rest of the Sentinel Wall and they'll just hang around the gondola while they proceed inside. After a while, a large door will open and two Sentinels will come out. Go through the door and follow the hallway until the end where there will be a piston. Jump down. Continue down the hallway and turn right. Activate the piston and jump down. Right near the dead Human bodies there will be a Spratan with a Shotgun and some SMG's. I usually take the Shotgun. Continue down the Flood-infested hallway and at the end will be another piston, so jump down. In this massive room there will be plenty of ammo spread around, you just have to look a little. I don't even bother fighting, but you can do whatever. At the end of the smaller room will be an opening into an identical, massive room. Again, there will be some ammo strewn about, so if you’re running low, quick grab some. Otherwise, jump down into the massive room and head left. They've see a piston when they're near to it and jump down. The next area is very dark, and perfect for the Arbiter's camouflage. Go straight until you reach the stack of boxes, and then turn right. Keep going until you reach the end and walk on the lowered platform in the middle of the room. It's an identical hallway that you've been down before-the one with the triangle supports. It doesn't matter which way they take, but head to the end of the room like before, and go down the identical walkway. Once you're in the next room, head left and at the end of the room you'll see a piston in an alcove to the left. Activate it and jump down, and do the same with the next piston. You'll drop down into a room like the one you were in when you started the level, except there's a piston in the middle of it. Go up to the piston, activate it, and drop down. You'll drop down into an identical room, except this one has a battle raging on. I always pick up the sword near the piston in the middle of the room before I activate the piston and drop down, but you don't have to. You'll keep falling for what seems like forever. When you stop though, there's a large door a few meters away. Walk through the door, and past the bridge. Keep going until you reach a Praetorian Sniper Tower. Fight the waves of The Infected with the other Elites until you've killed all of the Infected. Behind the Shielded Plasma Cannon is a small tunnel, head through that tunnel. A battle will already be going on, so help them. Keep fighting until the cut scene starts. Congratulations, you've completed Sacred Icon! The Walkthrough Alright, so they've got a Carbine and a Plasma Pistol. There is a container to your left with two Plasma Rifles. Dual-wield them in place of the Plasma Pistol and keep going through the piston on the next level to your left. (Get used to the piston idea). At this part, it doesn't matter. If you want speed, you can overload it with the Plasma Rifles, or save the battery and activate it manually. The rest of the time you have to use the Plasma Rifles. Go down, and through the next piston. Once down, you will go through the hall. Use the Plasma Rifles to activate the next piston, as Sentinels will come out. Same thing with the next hall. Now, you come to a hall with Grunts and Jackals fighting off Sentinels. Only kill the Sentinels if you need to! You'll need the ammo. Now, there's another hallway. do the same thing. If you're running low on Plasma Rifle battery, there is a dead brute with a full Plasma Rifle up ahead. Once at the end, turn left and overload the piston. Now, you'll come to an enforcer guarding the plug locks you have to overload. Ignore the Enforcer! It will just die once you finish the task. Once you've overloaded all the locks it's just a push-a-button task. Go invisible and push the button in the middle. The Enforcer will just explode once you do this. Thank god that's over. Now Tartarus will just pick me up in the next landing, right. Another Enforcer will come. Just kill the Enforcer really fast so that you can go on without having to fight the Flood and Sentinels. Now, if you threw away your dual-wielded Plasma Rifle to use the Carbine, pick it up if you can find it. Otherwise, just keep going through the tunnel that opens once you get to the top. Don't wait around in here, just run through and get in the piston. If you wait, hordes of Infected will come out and kill'em fairly fast. Now, once you get to the bottom, The Infected are Their biggest problem. Just before They jump over the second half-wall, activate Their camouflage . TIMING IS IMPORTANT! I've been killed many times when my camouflage wore off in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or,when you here the doors opening, then they may also have active their camouflage. Now, another infested hallway. And what do they know, we've also got marines to play with! On your way out of the piston room, swap your Carbine for the Shotgun. If They've have the Sputnik in Their sights, you can grenade jump out the window to your right and get to the marines first hand, this is a lot quicker. Through this hall, you want to throw grenades, preferably Fragmentation Grenade, behind you, to kill any chasing flood. While running forward through the tunnel, after about 5 seconds of running, activate your camouflage. There is a crap load of Flood in the next room. Once your camouflage wears off, you should be able to fight their way through the smaller amount of Infected Carrier Forms and limited Combat Forms. If your camouflage recharges while doing this, activate it o skip the carriers. go down the piston, and you're in another hall, and you'll see boxes ahead of you. The piston will bring you down to a floor with a window to the outside where there is an Enforcer helping other Sentinels fight The Infected. Ignore them and go into the other elevated hall. Jump in and activate your active camouflage. Run through the Flood and go to a similar hall to the right of you when you jump down, and use the Plasma Rifle to overload the piston. Now you drop to a room where there is no flood and just a piston in the middle of the room. Go down it to another room just like it with another piston in the same place, just with Flood and Sentinels. Throw a grenade to the Flood on your right. There is an Energy Sword to the right of the piston. Swap your Plasma Rifle for it after you overload the piston with it. Drop down, and you're finally in open space. Run through the first area with Flood and Elites and go through the tunnel. Now just finish off all of the Flood in this area with your shotgun and energy sword (this is what it was for) and you're halfway to the great prize, the Sacred Icon! Objects in the Mirror Are Larger Than They Appear After the cutscene you'll see a Ghost to your northwest. Get in before the Special Operations Elite in front of it does. Once you're inside, look straight ahead. There will be a hill and a way to get on top, go about a 4th of the way up and wait for an Enforcer come straight out of the large opening in the wall. It'll go straight if you stay still. When he starts to turn go up and make a left turn into the door. Follow the path until they reach the 2nd door. When the music starts to play, go right. A Sentinel will attack them but ignore it and drive past the pillar in front of you. Watch out for the Flood-controlled Scorpion tank. Make another right down a ramp then make a left and go through the door ahead but wait for a Infected driven warthog to come through first. Then go through the tunnel until the next door. Up ahead you'll see two turns. Take the right one. Head downward until you see two "closed" doors. Go through whichever and as you get closer the door will open. Up ahead, make a left turn through a cave. At the end of the cave make a right turn and proceed until you come to a topless tunnel wait until you see a flood combat form shoot a rocket. Go straight past the silhouette of a Scorpion go straight until you're about to hit a dead end and turn left. they'll see what looks like a barricade crash into it and get out of your ghost go through the barricade and through the next cave until you see more ruins make a right and go up a ramp go straight until you hit the wall then go left until you're in a corner and with your carbine destroy however many Sentinels are shooting at you. Let your shields recharge and then go spec ops. After that jump off the ledge in front of you face right and go straight just go straight until you fall off another ledge then face right again and go straight. Something will fall in front of you that's on fire when that happens walk up to it and face left walk off the edge in front of you and pull out their swords then return to spec ops find a cave with combat Infected coming out of it then follow it to what looks like a dead end then turn left. Go straight an go up then where the pillars are get up there and go find a cave inhabited by Sentinels, and go straight. Once your out in the snow go past the wraith to an empty space of land on a cliff. Then wait for it drop a Spectre and two elites get in the driver seat and go towards where you came from but to the left go straight past the wraith and over a small ledge then go left again. Go straight off the ledge ahead but slower you want to land the jump. Now go to your left and around the green pit then go past the scorpion tank and to the lights go right and get out now go through a door until you find another opening and go up the ramp to what looks like a bigger version of the Gondolans you rode on Regret Shooting Gallery battling the Infected with their sword, and protecting their men, but this part is relatively easy if you pay attention. Replace your sword whenever necessary--but do not wait until it's depleted. Instead, give the near-empty sword to a SpecOps Elite. By the end of the ride, all the (remaining) Elites should have swords. However, If your men die, don't fight. Take cover because the Flood will think you are all dead. Just wait; patience is the key. Tartaorus will then say "The Humans are inside, Arbiter. After them!" This means the ride is almost done. When it stops, go to the front of the Gondola and walk onto the ramp. Go down the right side and go straight. Without shooting anything, just keep walking, and eventually They come to a dead end. Category:Story Arcs Category:Great Massacres